Monday, March 19, 2012

"Henny and Shanti had no children. But they did have an author for a great-nephew. And his Two Lives is a stay against their oblivion." from a review by Blake Morrison published in the Guardian on 9/16/2005

Although the writer Vikram Seth is not Jewish, a very large part of this moving story is about his Jewish great aunt Hennerle Caro who escaped to England from her home in Berlin in 1939. Shanti Seth, the author’s great uncle, met Henny Caro, his future wife, having rented a room from her mother before the war when he came from India to attend dental school in Berlin. They reconnected in England where he had already settled because as a "foreigner" he could not practice dentistry in Germany. They did not get married until 1951. Shanti Seth practiced as a dentist despite having lost an arm during his service in World War II.

The author came to know Shanti Uncle and Aunt Henny when in 1969, at the age of 17, he left India to attend school in England. A childless couple, Aunt Henny and Seth Uncle enjoyed the author’s company a great deal, treating him like a son. His great aunt suggested he learn German when he realized he needed to master a foreign language other than English as an education requirement. She offered to tutor him, which she did. He stayed close to them through the rest of their lives, visiting frequently, and flying in as often as he could from wherever he was when, as they grew older, they underwent a number of medical crises. Aunt Henny died in 1989 and Uncle Shanti in 1998.

The author’s original intent was to write a biography of the interesting life of his great uncle Shanti; he conducted extensive interviews with him after Aunt Henny died. But on a visit from India, in helping to clean out the attic after Aunt Henny’s death, Vikram Seth’s father found a trunk in the attic belonging to Aunt Henny full to the brim with correspondence, documents, and a few books. Her husband knew nothing about the trunk and their contents. Most correspondence covered the years from after the war through to the early 1950’s when Hennerle Caro was trying to find out about the fate of her mother and sister who had stayed behind in Berlin. Most were from Christian friends in Berlin consoling her on her loss and providing the information that they had gathered about the last days of Hennerle’s mother and sister who, she learned, though they lived together, were separated at death. Her elderly mother was deported to Theresienstadt, her sister to Birkenau.

The very long section in this 500 page book devoted to Henny Caro quotes these letters extensively and make for very interesting reading. Henny frequently made carbon copies of her responses so we hear her voice as she conveys her anger and bitterness at the fate of her family. What’s particularly interesting in her letters are her inquiries to friends she trusts about others of their friends who were trying to re-establish contact with her. She wanted to know exactly how they had each behaved during the war, what groups they had joined, who they had associated with. She is bitter about those who wrote to console her after she finds out from others that certain of them stayed away from visiting her mother and sister even though many of her friends had known them well. Others had put themselves at risk by visiting them and helping them out with food before they were deported.

Henny was an heir to her mother’s, her sister’s and her two maiden aunts’ estates. Henny’s closest Christian friend who still lived in Berlin offered to help her with claims against the German government to facilitate compensation for both her lost wages and all confiscated property. The letters back and forth between Henny, her friend, the German government and the American government (because she suspected her wealthy aunts had sent money to American banks) reveal a callousness on the part of the bureaucracy in both governments that still outrages so many years later.

Vikram Seth informs us that before he investigated these letters in the trunk he only had a superficial knowledge about the Holocaust. He knew no Jews growing up in India. He was shocked that he had known nothing about his great aunt’s past. When he talked to his great uncle who had known his mother-in-law and sister-in-law when he lived in Berlin, Shanti Uncle said his wife never wanted to talk about it.

For the author, writing this book included doing research about Jewish Berlin, the Nazi edicts visited on its Jewish residents, deportations, and conditions and procedures in the Thesienstadt and Berkenau concentration camps. At one point the author visited Israel to give a talk and found himself spontaneously going to Yad Vashem where he found entries for Gabriele and Lola Caro in German documents. Reading the German, a language he loved that was part of his connection to his great aunt when she had tutored him, so sickened him that for a period he stopped reading German and listening to German Leider.

The author concludes with making some salient points about having written this book. He is troubled with the fact that he was publishing letters that were not meant for the public eye, but decides that since Shanti Uncle and Aunt Henny are long gone, their lives are now part of history. He makes the point that their lives spanned most of the twentieth century and through his research and analysis the author reveals how the major events of the 20th century shaped their lives and those around them.

People
Isaac Caro – married Gabriele (Ella) Schmelkes
Lola Caro – daughter of Isaac and Gabriele
Hennerle Gerda Caro – daughter of Isaac and Gabriele; married Shanti Seth
Heinz (Hei) Caro – son of Isaac and Gabriele; married Mia stonewalling at absurdity of responses from US and Germany

Monday, March 5, 2012

"This moving account illuminates a little-known aspect of the Holocaust: Organization Schmelt, in which Jewish leaders supplied slave labor to the Germans for the war effort." from a review in Publisher's Weekly 8/21/2006

In 1991 when Ann Kirschner’s mother Sala was about to enter the hospital for by-pass surgery, afraid she might die, Sala Garncarz Kirschner handed her daughter a portfolio containing what turned out to be 352 letters, documents and photos that she had saved and guarded throughout the almost five years she had been in labor camps during World War II. The portfolio was a well-kept secret. Her daughter knew her mother was a survivor, but her mother had never been willing to talk about her experience. After the surgery, the two embarked on a project to reconstruct Sala’s life through interviews and through translating and putting in sequential order Sala’s collection – a “gift” to her family and to the wider world.

Sala Garncarz was the youngest daughter born into a large family of poor observant Jews who lived in Sosnowiec in western Poland. Because Sosnowiec and other towns near it were close to the German border, the Nazis established labor camps where they enslaved Jews to work to help their war effort. Sala Garncarz reported to a labor camp in Geppersdorf in late 1940 when she was just sixteen years old, was transferred at different times to other labor camps, and was liberated in 1945 from the Schatzlar labor camp in Czechoslovakia.

In this memoir Ann Kirschner has included many of the letters her mother saved. Many were from her sister Reizel who at first wrote from home and then from the Neusalz labor camp where she was taken along with a third sister, Blima. Another set of early letters are from Sala’s girlfriends back home who had not yet been deported to concentration camps or assigned to labor camps. A third set is from Ala Gertner, a woman ten years older than Sala who promised Sala's mother she would take care of Sala. Although the letters were censored, it is easy to read between the lines, and we can follow the progression from cheerful and hopeful to fearful and desperate.

Ann Kirschner did a lot of research to be able to contextualize the events in her mother’s life. Kirschner, for example, gives important background information about the Sosnowiec Jewish community and what happened to that community when the Nazis invaded Poland. She describes the role of Moses Merin whom the Nazis appointed as head of the Jewish Council and his double dealing as he tried to maintain his position and hold onto his life. She also gives us a short history of labor camps, as opposed to concentration camps, explaining the role of the Nazi officer Albrecht Schmelt who created and then administered a growing web of labor camps. (Oscar Schindler is probably the most well known factory owner whose factory was served by a labor camp.) She describes the vital role these camps played in the Nazi war effort and then their waning presence after Hitler’s 1942 Final Solution went into effect.

Sala Garncarz was released into a changed Poland. We follow her as she makes her way home to find out who is still alive. She then meets her future husband - an American GI, marries, and starts a new life in America, burying her old life in her heart and secreting evidence of her past in her portfolio.

The author has included many photos and copies of documents as well as an index and an extensive listing of sources divided into the following categories: Prewar Life in Sosnowiec, Poland and During the Occupation; Nazi Labor Camps and Organization Schmelt; Moses Merin and the Jewish Council; August 12, 1942; Ala Gertner and the Auschwitz Uprising; Schatzlar, Neusalz, and Dyhernfurth. She has also included a useful listing of "Additional Sources and Inspirations" which is mostly a listing of more general works on the Holocaust.

To watch and listen to a lecture on You Tube by Ann Kirschner about her mother's story, click here.

To read a document on the website of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum about forced labor as well as to see archival footage and to have access to personal testimonies, click here.

People
Family
Abram Simcha Garncarz – married to Rachel
Moshe Chaim Garncarz – son of Abram and Rachel; married Matel Sczydlov
Raizel Lea Garncarz – daughter of Abram and Rachel; married Yaacov Fischel

Josef Garncarz –nephew of Abram and Rachel; married Chana Feldman(second wife)
Miriam Chaya Garncarz – daughter of Josef and first wife
Moshe David Garncarz – son of Josef and Chana; married to Hendel
Laya Dina Garncarz – daughter of Josef and Chana; married to David Krzesiwo
Salusia and Moniek Krzesiwo – children of Laya Dina and David
Hersh Leib Garncarz – son of Josef and Chana
Avram Yitzhak Garncarz – son of Josef and Chana
Chaim Pincus Garncarz – son of Josef and Chana
Fiegele Garncarz – daughter of Josef and Chana
Yankov Aaron – son of Josef and Chana
Blima Garncarz – daughter of Josef and Chana; married to Jacob Goldberg
Raizel (Rose) Garncarz – daughter of Josef and Chana; married to Ezriel Lange
Salusia (Sala) Garncarz – daughter of Josef and Chana; married Sydney Kirschner
Joseph Kirschner – son of Sala and Sydney
Ann Kirschner – daughter of Sala and Sydney; married to Harold Weinberg
Elisabeth, Caroline and Peter Weinberg - children of Ann and Harold
David Kirschner – son of Sala and Sydney

Jennie, Jeremy, Gabby, Rachel and Yael Kirschner - children of Joseph and David Kirschner (not clear which children "belong" to Joseph and which to David)

Family of Chana Feldman (author’s great-grandmother – see above)
Asher Alter Feldman – uncle of Chana; married Tobele
Yacob Hainoch Feldman – son of Asher and Tobele
Blima Yockevet Feldman – daughter of Asher and Tobele
Esther Feldman – daughter of Asher and Tobele
Miriam Feldman – daughter of Asher and Tobele
Aaron Yosef Feldman – son of Asher and Tobele
Leah Dina Feldman – daughter of Asher and Tobele; married Yechiel Ophir
Moshe Leib Feldman – son of Asher and Tobele
David Feldman – son of Asher and Tobele
Shlomo Feldman – son of Asher and Tobele
Melech Feldman – son of Asher and Tobele
Mendel Wolf Feldman – son of Asher and Tobele

"[W]hen I was much younger . . . even then I would wonder what kind of present you could possibly have without knowing the stories of your past." Daniel Mendelsohn, The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million

Welcome

My name is Toby Anne Bird and I've been interested in memoirs for many years. I teach courses on autobiographical writing in New York, and I'm an amateur genealogist. I've created this blog to call attention to the many compelling memoirs about Jewish people, their communities, their history and their culture.

Genealogy and history are more than facts and figures. Memoirs help bring those facts and figures to life because they are eye-witness accounts that immerse their readers in lives lived. These primary sources help you understand life on the ground, so to speak - a time period, a geographical location, and/or a particular set of circumstances.

The memoirs that I post on this blog are ones I've read and recommend. Each post consists of a short review of the contents and is followed by lists of family names and geographical locations of interest to those involved in Jewish genealogy. I will occasionally also be posting documentaries and fiction that can enrich a genealogical or historical perspective.

I hope that lots of you out in cyberspace will find this blog useful. I expect in the beginning to post three times a week - on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, one memoir per post. I welcome your feedback, suggestions, and questions. This blog went live on 3/1/2010.

Toby Anne Bird, Ph.DYou can leave comments on the blog or e-mail me at toby.bird@ncc.edu.

4/12/2010: I now have posted reviews on 30 books and documentaries. I will now be adding reviews twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays instead of three times a week.

7/19/10: I now have now posted reviews of more than 50 books and documentaries. I will now be adding reviews once a week on Mondays.

9/5/11: I now have posted reviews of more than 100 books and documentaries. I will now be adding reviews twice a month on the first and third Mondays.

5/31/14: I now have posted reviews of more than 170 books and documentaries. I will now be adding reviews once a month on the first Monday.

11/6/15: This blog will be on partial hiatus. If I read a memoir that I think should be added, I'll add it. It's been a five year run.

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Blog Table of Contents: Alphabetical List of Reviews Posted

Abramovich and Zilberg, Smuggled in Potato Sacks: Fifty stories of the Hidden Children of the Kaunas Ghetto

Aciman, Out of Egypt

Adorjan, An Exclusive Love

Alban, Anya's War

Antin, The Promised Land: The Autobiography of a Russian Immigrant

Appelfeld, My Life

Apple, I Love Gootie: My Grandmother's Story

Apple, Roomates: My Grandfather's Story

Auster, Invention of Solitude

Bauer (director), The Ritchie Boys (documentary film)

Beer's The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust

Behar, An Island Called Home: Returning to Jewish Cuba

Bendavid-Val, The Heavens Are Empty: Discovering the Lost Town of Trochenbrod

Benjamin, Last Days in Babylon: The History of a Familly, The Story of a Nation

Berg, Diary of Mary Berg: Growing up in the Warsaw ghetto

Berger, Displaced Persons: Growing Up American After the Holocaust

Bernstein H., The Dream

Bernstein H., The Invisible Wall

Bernstein, B. Family Matters: Sam, Jennie and the kids

Bernstein, S., The Seamstress: A Memoir of Survival

Berr, The Journal of Helene Berr

Bitton-Jackson, I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing up in the Holocaust

Bloom, Out of a Doll's House

Brenner, The Girls of Room 28: Friendship, Hope, and Survival in Theresienstadt

Brittain and Spotton (writer/director) Memorandum (documentary film)

Buergenthal, A Lucky Child: A memoir of surviving Auschwitz as a young boy

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Interesting Articles

My Blog List

Potentially Useful Books that are more Histories, than Memoirs - not reviewed.

Eliach, There Once Was a World: A 900-year Chronicle of the Shtetl of Eishyshok, 1998. A National Book Award Finalist that recreates and documents the author's hometown shtetl in Lithuania that is the basis for the permanent exhibit called the "Tower of Life" at the U.S. Holocaust Museum.

Evans, The Provincials: A Personal History of Jews in the South, 1973. A classic study of its subject, only intermittently autobiographical. The author grew up in Durham, North Carolina.

Margoshes, A World Apart: A Memoir of Jewish Life in Nineteenth Century Galicia, published in Yiddish in 1936; published in English in 2008. A very useful book written in a lively manner about life in Galicia which includes discussions of the Hassidic dynasties and other rabbinic authorities and their rivalries, the world of work beyond the realm of the synagogue, and the day to day life of the author's family.

Ringelblum, Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto: The Journal of Emmanuel Ringelbaum, 1958. A day by day documenting of life and death in the Warsaw ghetto and what Ringelblum, a social historian and archivist of the ghetto, heard about the war outside the ghetto.